Pierri Cataldo, Lazic Tamara, Gristina Michele, Corriero Giuseppe, Sinopoli Mauro
Department of Biology, University of Bari Aldo Moro, 70125 Bari, Italy.
National Research Council of Italy IAS-Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment, 90149 Palermo, Italy.
Biology (Basel). 2022 Feb 18;11(2):325. doi: 10.3390/biology11020325.
Human pressures on marine ecosystems have caused extensive degradation of marine habitats and several local extinctions. Overexploitation and destructive fishing practices are responsible for biodiversity loss in many coastal ecosystems. The definition of conservation programs in marine fish requires comprehensive knowledge on large-scale geographical distribution, while considering distribution/abundance patterns in relation to key environmental variables. Due to their life-cycle traits, the two European seahorses ( and ), as with other congeneric species, are particularly sensitive to the effects of anthropogenic activities and habitat changes. However, information on the ecological distribution of these two species is scattered, patchy, and mainly focused on small-scale studies. In this paper, we followed an international standard protocol for systematic reviews (the PRISMA protocol) to provide a detailed assessment of the two species' geographical distribution in relation to the environmental characteristics. According to the 134 analyzed studies, is more common in confined areas, while is found in marine shelf waters. With several interspecific differences, seagrasses were the most used holdfasts of both species. The EUNIS codes (European nature information system) referring to a specific and unique habitat were discussed as a potential tool for defining the ecological distribution of the two species. The obtained results and their future implementation could help plan conservation actions.
人类对海洋生态系统的压力已导致海洋栖息地广泛退化和一些局部物种灭绝。过度开发和破坏性捕捞行为是许多沿海生态系统生物多样性丧失的原因。海洋鱼类保护计划的定义需要全面了解大规模地理分布，同时考虑与关键环境变量相关的分布/丰度模式。由于其生命周期特征，两种欧洲海马（ 和 ）与其他同属物种一样，对人为活动和栖息地变化的影响特别敏感。然而，关于这两个物种生态分布的信息零散、不完整，且主要集中在小规模研究上。在本文中，我们遵循国际系统评价标准协议（PRISMA协议），以详细评估这两个物种相对于环境特征的地理分布。根据134项分析研究， 在受限区域更为常见，而 在陆架海域被发现。存在一些种间差异，海草是这两个物种最常用的附着基。讨论了涉及特定独特栖息地的EUNIS代码（欧洲自然信息系统）作为定义这两个物种生态分布的潜在工具。所得结果及其未来应用有助于规划保护行动。
